Law of Thinking

Louise Hay - The Law of Thinking.

Cited by Stephen Covey - "Three Kinds of Appreciation", It's valuable to make a distinction between three different kinds of appreciation - auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. These are the three different ways that the brain takes in information, and everybody has a dominant type they prefer.

Auditory people need to hear it, visual people need to see it, and kinesthetic people need to feel it. If you give visual feedback to an auditory person, it doesn't have the same effect. The person might say, "He sends me letters and cards and e-mails, but he never takes the time to walk over and tell me to my face."

Visual people, on the other hand, like to receive something they can see, perhaps even hang on their refrigerator. They love letters, cards, flowers, plaques, certificates, pictures - gifts of any kind. They can see it and keep the memory of it around forever. We can tell who these people are by their bulletin boards, refrigerators, and walls. They are covered with reminders that they are loved and appreciated.

Kinesthetic people need to feel it - a hug, a handshake, a pat on the back, or actually doing something with them, such as the gift of a massage, taking them out to lunch or dinner, taking them to a baseball game, going for a wal, or going out dancing.

If you want to be a real pro at appreciation, you want to learn which kind of feedback makes the most impact on the person you are delivering it to. One easy way is to ask the person to remember the time they felt most loved in their life. Then ask them to describe it to you. You can ask some follow-up questions such as "Was is something they said, something they did, the way (auditory), the tenderness of their touch, or the way they held you as you were dancing (kinesthetic)?" Once you determine if the person is primarily auditory, visual, or kinesthetic, then you can purposely direct your feedback that way.